Epic Historial Collection (42 page)

Philip had walked on, around the back of the dormitory. Tom hurried to catch him. They found the dormitory unmarked. Going on, they found the other monastic buildings more or less unharmed: the refectory, the kitchen, the bakehouse and the brewery. Philip might have taken some consolation in that, but his expression remained glum.

They ended up where they had started, in front of the ruined west end, having completed a full circuit of the priory close without speaking a word. Philip sighed heavily and broke the silence. “The devil did this,” he said.

Tom thought: This is my moment. He took a deep breath and said: “It might be God's work.”

Philip looked up at him in surprise. “How so?”

Tom said carefully: “No one has been hurt. The books, the treasure and the bones of the saint were saved. Only the church has been destroyed. Perhaps God wanted a new church.”

Philip smiled skeptically. “And I suppose God wanted you to build it.” He was not too stunned to see that Tom's line of thought might be self-interested.

Tom stood his ground. “It may be so,” he said stubbornly. “It was not the devil who sent a master builder here on the night the church burned down.”

Philip looked away. “Well, there will be a new church, but I don't know when. And what am I to do meanwhile? How can the life of the monastery go on? All we're here for is worship and study.”

Philip was deep in despair. This was the moment for Tom to offer him new hope. “My boy and I could have the cloisters cleared and ready for use in a week,” he said, making his voice sound more confident than he felt.

Philip was surprised. “Could you?” Then his expression changed once more, and he looked defeated again. “But what will we use for a church?”

“What about the crypt? You can hold services there, couldn't you?”

“Yes—it would do very well.”

“I'm sure the crypt is not badly damaged,” Tom said. It was almost true: he was almost sure.

Philip was looking at him as if he were the angel of mercy.

“It won't take long to clear a path through the debris from the cloisters to the crypt stairs,” Tom went on. “Most of the church on that side has been completely destroyed, which is fortunate, oddly enough, because it means there's no further danger from falling masonry. I'd have to survey the walls that are still standing, and it might be necessary to shore some of them up. Then they should be checked every day for cracks, and even so you ought not to enter the church in a gale.” All of this was important, but Tom could see that Philip was not taking it in. What Philip wanted from Tom now was positive news, something to lift his spirits. And the way to get hired was to give him what he wanted. Tom changed his tone. “With some of your younger monks laboring for me, I could fix things up so that you're able to resume normal monastic life, after a fashion, within two weeks.”

Philip was staring at him. “Two weeks?”

“Give me food and lodging for my family, and you can pay my wages when you have the money.”

“You could give me back my priory in two weeks?” Philip repeated incredulously.

Tom was not sure he could, but if it took three no one would die of it. “Two weeks,” he said firmly. “After that, we can knock down the remaining walls—that's a skilled job, mind you, if it's to be done safely—then clear the rubble, stacking the stones for reuse. Meanwhile we can plan the new cathedral.” Tom held his breath. He had done his best. Surely Philip would hire him now!

Philip nodded, smiling for the first time. “I think God did send you,” he said. “Let's have some breakfast, then we can start work.”

Tom breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said. There was a quaver in his voice that he could not quite control, but suddenly he did not care, and with a barely suppressed sob, he said: “I can't tell you how much it means to me.”

 

After breakfast Philip held an impromptu chapter in Cuthbert's storeroom beneath the kitchen. The monks were nervously excited. They were men who had chosen, or had reconciled themselves to, a life of security, predictability and tedium, and most of them were badly disoriented. Their bewilderment touched Philip's heart. He felt more than ever like a shepherd, whose job it is to care for foolish and helpless creatures; except that these were not dumb animals, they were his brothers, and he loved them. The way to comfort them, he had decided, was to tell them what was going to happen, use up their nervous energy in hard work, and return to a semblance of normal routine as soon as possible.

Despite the unusual surroundings, Philip did not abbreviate the ritual of chapter. He ordered the reading of the martyrology for the day, followed by the memorial prayers. This was what monasteries were for: prayer was the justification of their existence. Nevertheless, some of the monks were restive, so he chose Chapter Twenty of Saint Benedict's Rule, the section called “On Reverence at Prayer.” The necrology followed. The familiar ritual calmed their nerves, and he noticed that the scared look was slowly leaving the faces around him as the monks realized that their world was not coming to an end after all.

At the end Philip rose to address them. “The catastrophe that struck us last night is, after all, only physical,” he began, putting into his voice as much warmth and reassurance as he could. “Our life is spiritual; our work is prayer, worship and contemplation.” He looked all around the room for a moment, catching as many eyes as he could, making sure he had their concentrated attention; then he said: “We will resume that work within a few days, that I promise you.”

He paused to let those words sink in, and the easing of tension in the room was almost tangible. He gave them a moment, then went on. “God in his wisdom sent us a master builder yesterday to help us through this crisis. He has assured me that if we work under his direction we can have the cloisters ready for normal use within a week.”

There was a subdued murmur of pleased surprise.

“I'm afraid our church will never be used for services again—it will have to be built anew, and that will take many years, of course. However, Tom Builder believes the crypt to be undamaged. The crypt is consecrated, so we can hold services there. Tom says he can make it safe within a week after finishing the cloisters. So, you see, we can resume normal worship in time for Quinquagesima Sunday.”

Once again their relief was audible. Philip saw that he had succeeded in soothing and reassuring them. At the beginning of this chapter they had been frightened and confused; now they were calm and hopeful. Philip added: “Brothers who feel themselves too frail to undertake physical labor will be excused. Brothers who work all day with Tom Builder will be allowed red meat and wine.”

Philip sat down. Remigius was the first to speak. “How much will we have to pay this builder?” he asked suspiciously.

You could trust Remigius to try to find fault. “Nothing, yet,” Philip replied. “Tom knows our poverty. He will work for food and lodging for himself and his family, until we can afford his wages.” That was ambiguous, Philip realized: it might mean that Tom would not be entitled to wages until the priory could afford it, whereas the reality was that the priory would owe him wages for every day he worked, starting today. But before Philip could clarify the agreement, Remigius spoke again.

“And where will they lodge?”

“I have given them the guesthouse.”

“They could lodge with one of the village families.”

“Tom has made us a generous offer,” Philip said impatiently. “We're fortunate to have him. I don't want to make him sleep crowded in with someone's goats and pigs when we have a decent house standing empty.”

“There are two women in that family—”

“A woman and a girl,” Philip corrected him.

“One woman, then. We don't want a woman living in the priory!”

The monks muttered restively: they did not like Remigius's quibbling. Philip said: “It's perfectly normal for women to stay in the guesthouse.”

“Not
that
woman!” Remigius blurted, then he immediately looked as if he regretted it.

Philip frowned. “Do you know the woman, Brother?”

“She once inhabited these parts,” Remigius said reluctantly.

Philip was intrigued. It was the second time something of this sort had happened in connection with the builder's wife: Waleran Bigod had also been disturbed by the sight of her. Philip said: “What's wrong with her?”

Before Remigius could answer, Brother Paul, the old monk who kept the bridge, spoke up. “I remember,” he said rather dreamily. “There was a wild forest girl used to live around here—oh, it must be fifteen year ago. That's who she reminds me of—probably it's the same girl, grown up.”

“People said she was a witch,” Remigius said. “We can't have a witch living in the priory!”

“I don't know about that,” said Brother Paul in the same slow, meditative voice. “Any woman who lives wild gets called a witch sooner or later. People saying a thing doesn't make it so. I'm content to leave it to Prior Philip to judge, in his wisdom, whether she's a danger.”

“Wisdom doesn't come immediately with the assumption of monastic office,” Remigius snapped.

“Indeed not,” said Brother Paul slowly. He looked directly at Remigius and said: “Sometimes it doesn't come at all.”

The monks laughed at that riposte, which was all the funnier for coming from an unexpected source. Philip had to pretend to be displeased. He clapped his hands for silence. “Enough!” he said. “These matters are solemn. I will question the woman. Now let us go about our duties. Those who wish to be excused from labor may retire to the infirmary for prayer and meditation. The rest, follow me.”

He left the storeroom and walked around the back of the kitchen buildings to the south archway which led into the cloisters. A few monks left the group and headed for the infirmary, among them Remigius and Andrew Sacrist. There was nothing frail about either of them, Philip thought, but they would probably cause trouble if they joined the labor force, so he was happy to see them go. Most of the monks followed Philip.

Tom had already marshaled the priory servants and started work. He stood on the pile of rubble in the cloister square with a large piece of chalk in his hand, marking stones with the letter T, his initial.

For the first time ever, it occurred to Philip to wonder how such large stones could be moved. They were certainly too big for a man to lift. He saw the answer immediately. A pair of poles were laid side by side on the ground, and a stone was rolled along until it rested across the poles. Then two people would take the ends of the poles and lift. Tom Builder must have shown them how to do that.

The work was proceeding rapidly, with most of the priory's sixty servants helping, making a stream of people carrying stones away and coming back for more. The sight lifted Philip's spirits, and he gave up a silent prayer of thanks for Tom Builder.

Tom saw him and came down off the pile. Before speaking to Philip he addressed one of the servants, the tailor who sewed the monks' clothes. “Start the monks carrying stones,” he instructed the man. “Make sure they take only the stones I've marked, otherwise the pile may slip and kill someone.” He turned to Philip. “I've marked enough to keep them going for a while.”

“Where are they taking the stones?” Philip asked.

“Come and I'll show you. I want to check that they're stacking them properly.”

Philip went with Tom. The stones were being taken to the east side of the priory close. “Some of the servants will still have to do their normal duties,” Philip said as they walked. “The stable hands must still care for the horses, the cooks have to prepare meals, someone must fetch firewood and feed the chickens and go to market. But they're none of them overworked, and I can spare half of them. In addition, you'll have about thirty monks.”

Tom nodded. “That'll do.”

They passed the east end of the church. The laborers were stacking the still-warm stones up against the east wall of the priory close, a few yards from the infirmary and the prior's house. Tom said: “The old stones must be saved for the new church. They won't be used for walls, because secondhand stones don't weather well; but they'll do for foundations. All the broken stones must be kept, too. They'll be mixed with mortar and poured into the cavity between the inner and outer skins of the new walls, forming the rubble core.”

“I see.” Philip watched while Tom instructed the workers how to stack stones in an interlocking pattern so that the pile would not topple. It was already clear that Tom's expertise was indispensable.

When Tom was satisfied, Philip took his arm and led him on around the church, to the graveyard on the north side. The rain had stopped, but the gravestones were still wet. Monks were buried at the east end of the graveyard, villagers at the west end. The dividing line was the out-jutting north transept of the church, now in ruins. Philip and Tom stopped in front of it. A weak sun broke through the clouds. There was nothing sinister about the blackened timbers in daylight, and Philip felt almost ashamed that he had thought he had seen a devil last night.